It's been quite a while since I have had a Friday morning post. The college goes into a half-day Fridays schedule over the summer and I take Fridays off as vacation and pretend each three day weekend really was a vacation. Today marks the return to the normal weekly schedule. Thursday got a short run at being the popular dude, now is recast in his normal role of The Pretender.
This last week of summer break, while intensely busy with students registering, paying, advising, orienting, before the start of fall quarter is also, in many parts of campus, the quietest of times. Faculty return next week, then classes start the following week.
Like an agrarian community laying in a harvest before the first frosts of fall, getting ready for the winter coming, these are weeks of preparation and laying down direction for the coming year. Deer paths flattened through the tall dew-damp grass.
Technically, each academic year starts with summer quarter, but fall quarter is when the year starts in earnest, in our hearts and minds. Fall is the real communal coming together, articulation of vision statements, the kick-off of projects and goals. Summer quarter is a trial balloon, floated tentatively to test the winds.
But I digress. Friday mornings are also, more than most other mornings, at least for me, poetry mornings. Today's discovery is a poem by Tim Bowling, The Last Days Of Summer Before The First Frost. It starts:
Here at the wolf’s throat, at the egress of the howl,
all along the avenue of deer-blink and salmon-kick
where the spider lets its microphone down
into the cave of the blackberry bush—earth echo,
absence of the human voice—wait here
with a bee on your wrist and a fly on your cheek,
the tiny sun and tiny eclipse.
Today's playlist:
- Céu: Roda (Bombay Dub Orchestra's Grateful Dub Radio Mix)
- Doves Ambition
- Kurt Ellington: The Best things Happen While You're Dancing
- Mark Knopfler: The Car Was The One
- Nancy Griffith: Trouble in the Fields
- Posted via Hermes.
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